Blood Pressure improves with Hypertension Program

Hypertension or high blood pressure affects 65 million Americans. Uncontrolled, it can put people at risk for heart attack and stroke. A new study examined how a large-scale program, could influence blood pressure control rates.  “I don’t believe we can really effectively address hypertension control by thinking about it every once in a while. It’s the kind of thing that you have to pay attention to all the time.”  Dr. Marc Jaffe from Kaiser Permanente and co-authors, established a five point program for patients diagnosed with high blood pressure from 2001 to 2009.  Patients received the latest blood pressure treatment plans. Physicians and clinics were given feedback on patient progress. There were consistent blood pressure checks and for those taking medications, a single pill combination drug therapy was promoted.  “Using all those five components we had over 80 percent hypertension control at the end and compare that to about 44 percent hypertension control in the beginning of 2001. That’s a near doubling of hypertension control rates.”  The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.